I have never used twitter and have no idea how to even start with these types of social media.
Can I browse without an account?
What am I to be looking for?
You don’t need an account. Just check it out for a few minutes. You’ll either like it or not.
@hajario
Thank you - I am curious. I’ll look around.
Once you kind of get the hang of it, which won’t take long, you can search for topics of interest or celebrities that you like. Celebrities doesn’t necessarily mean actor or other entertainers. It can be journalists or writers or scientists.
These redundant apps and never ending exoduses from one app to another are tiresome.
It happens like once every couple of years and, of course, none of it is mandatory. A significant number of products get improved (in the eyes of most people) versions and the population changes.
Huh. I’d find it a lot more tiresome to have a single app that, once created, no one could ever switch away from.
The European Federation of Journalists will stop posting content on X entirely starting on January 20th.
Changed my handle to enable verification. Now mtgeogeek.com
Man, there’s a ton of catfishing on Bluesky. Never happened on Twitter or Threads for me. I must have followed the wrong person. (Threads doesn’t have direct messaging, so I guess there’s no catfishing there)
I see a shit ton of catfishing on Threads. You must hang out with a more genteel crowd over there
Funny thing is, my crowd at BS is all of you.
I see tons of thirst traps over there, but without direct messaging, they can’t do the usual, “How are you?” message, followed by “Can we talk on WhatsApp?”
I’ve been getting a spate of texts recently that are just “hi”, or “how are you?” from numbers not in my contacts. I’m mostly getting them on the burner phone number i bought for canvassing. I wonder if the prior owner of that number did something to encourage it, it if it’s just picking random phone numbers.
How does catfishing work on threads or bluesky?
Query: catfishing?
It doesn’t work on Threads as far as I know. On BS, someone follows me, I follow them back, they DM me with Hi! How are you?
If I write back, ‘she’ continues the conversation and then suggests that we switch to a more secure messaging app (WhatsApp, Telegram) so we can get to know each other better.
Catfishing is when someone pretends to like you, creates a remote emotional relationship, and then starts asking for money. Lonely men and women have lost tons of money.
Is there some reason you follow people back if they follow you? I never do that. I only follow people I have an interest in reading more from. Mostly media types.
It just seems polite, I guess. The first bunch were you people here. This wasn’t an issue on Twitter, for some reason. I must have gotten on some kind of suckers list on BS.
I’ve followed back most of the unknown folks who’ve followed me on Bluesky.They can always be unfollowed later if their posts trend heavily toward endless cat photos or political weirdness.
Exceptions to follow-back include young women who are apparently seeking followers for purported nude photo delights (AI or otherwise) and the Giant Egg who is trying to get the most followers/likes for some competitive reason.
I don’t immediately follow back anyone who follows me, but if they start interacting with me on a regular basis, and they seem decent people, I will likely follow back then.
It is probably a pig butchering scam that is using catfishing as the technique to get you involved. I don’t mean to be overly pedantic, but if you want to read about how these work, the right term will get you to the best information.
They won’t ask directly for money (“send me $1000 so I can buy a plane ticket to come see you”), it’s more of a “I got rich, and you are my friend, so I’ll tell you how to do it, too.” They then have you install a crypto currency app they control. They can trick you with fake returns, but eventually will take the money.
As for follow backs, I’ll do it if I recognize the person, but otherwise I don’t. Some of the accounts following me are probably follow farms. They follow a bunch of people, hoping many will follow them back, and then start spamming. During the buildup phase the account’s posting activity might look normal.
One time it was very obvious it was a spam account, so I just blocked, but the others I’m not sure about. I mean maybe this person follows 65k people for a legitimate reason?
Don’t let any of this dissuade anyone from giving Bluesky a try. Spam accounts and bad actors show up here, too. It is a problem that all sites have, and Bluesky is aware of it and working on it, but there is no solution, just never ending work dealing with it.